(barn noise)
Audrey and Bill Rhodes joke that their 18 acre farm in the town of Washington is a menagerie.
They raise guinea hen, Sicilian donkeys and angora goats.
But as the name of their farm---Mirage Alpaca—suggests, their bread and butter is alpacas.
(sound of alpacas and guinea hens in the background)…Audrey: "ginger snap..."
Sarah and her baby, Ginger Snap are in the barn separated from the rest of the females as Ginger Snap nurses a broken leg.
Cousins of the llama, alpacas are a goofy looking bunch.
They've got long necks, pointy ears and small noses.
Their fluffy coat begs to be pet, although their skiddish nature probably won’t let you.
The Rhodes own 130 alpacas…they believe they are the largest breeder in the state.
They were also one of the first on the alpaca scene when they bought their first three females in 1995.
Back then, say the Rhodes, there were around 300 breeders in the entire U.S. Today, according to the Alpaca Owners and Breeders Association, there are nearly 4000.
Bill and Audrey Rhodes say they’ve seen similar growth in this region of the country.
"The number of NEAOBA members has expanded…Audrey: NEOBA being New England Alpacas Owners and Breeders Association…by I would say 10 fold in the ten years we’ve been in the business and where they were a handful of breeders in New Hampshire when we started there are scores now."
Alpacas provide a fleece that's lighter and some say warmer than wool….it feels more like cashmere.
And Audrey Rhodes points out, it comes in a wide range of colors.
"Coffee, black, light rose gray, light silver gray medium silver gray…"
But at least right now, breeders like the Rhodes are not making money off the fiber.
They're making money by selling alpacas to other breeders.
"The underlying value of the alpaca is very fine fiber but the prices of alpacas would not be supported strictly on the basis of their fibers, so the objective of a breeder whether they are large or small is to continually upgrade their herd and demand top dollar for their breeding stock, that’s basically what we’ve done."
When Bill Rhodes says top dollar he means it.
The average price for a breeding alpaca is around 15 to 20,000 dollars.
However, if an alpaca does well in competition, its value increases significantly.
According to the Rhodes', one stud—not their own—sold for half a million dollars last year.
Breeders say the secret to the alpacas’ high prices in the U.S. is the limited supply.
They can't be imported from South America any longer.
Byfield, Massachusetts Alpaca farmer Dave Sanderson has another reason.
Sanderson is the president of the New England Alpaca Owners and Breeders Association.
"These animals reproduce slowly, a pair of alpacas will produce more one alpaca every year, the gestation is 11, 11 ½ months long, so its not like some livestock that people might compare it to."
If this scenario of the get-rich-quick scheme in farming sounds familiar, it is.
Who'd have guessed 20 years ago that New Hampshire would now host buffalo and elks farms.
And then there are the more notorious comparisons--the ostrich and emu fads from a few years back.
"Ten years ago we had the ostriches being the hot market and 5, 6, 7 years ago we started hearing stories about farmers and people turning out their ostriches and emus out into the wilds of western Texas."
That’s Dan Vaught, Livestock Analyst and associate vice president with AG Edwards and Sons in St. Louis.
Vaught says strong demand for a limited number of ostrich and emu drove prices through the roof. Eventually the bubble burst.
He says alpaca prices today indicate that history could be repeating itself.
"The problem is at some point you get far beyond the commercial viability of the product as you go forward as you spend so much money getting into the business to start with and as a consequence with such high costs involved few people can really make a go of business as a going money making venture as a consequence they’re not able to make any money and sustain it going forward."
Those kinds of predictions don't worry farmer Sanderson.
"When I got into it 8 years ago people were pretty much saying the same thing that they are saying today which is I foresee that it would be strong steady growth for a few years and a few years turned into a few more years and a few more years, it just keeps going in the same steady direction."
Sanderson is like many alpaca breeders who came to the market with no background in agriculture.
He used to be a hi-tech executive.
Sanderson says not only has he equaled his income in his new alpaca business.
He also finds his daily tractor rides much more appealing than daily commutes to the airport.
(barn noise) that’s western sunrise, that’s my brigadiere…"
Carol Karsten has a similar story. She was once a securities analyst.
Now she has over 100 alpaca on her farm in Antrim.
Karsten has also matched what she calls her “very good†salary while at Fidelity.
"This is the most creative job I have ever had, it beats the crap out of fidelity and fidelity was a phenomenal job."
Karsten doesn't just breed them.
She harvests about 800 pounds of fleece a year which she knits and sells at her farm.
Although at this point, her clip is more than she knows what to do with.
Karsten says the cottage industry approach works for many breeders.
But she’d like the industry to give more thought to a large scale market for alpaca fiber in the U.S.
And that's not easy when farmers are making nearly all their money off alpaca breeding.
"We don’t have a strategic plan that tells us where our industry will be five years from now…our customers are getting more educated, the new breeders, they know it’s a breeding market, but they also ask you hard questions about where the fiber market is going to go."
When asked about the growing number of alpaca breeders in the state, agriculture commissioner Steve Taylor says he’s pleased by anything that encourages people to conserve land and make some money while they’re at it.
Although he does seem slightly tickled by the newest farm animal to call New Hampshire home.
Taylor says it’s anyone’s guess what the next one will be…
"Well I hope it’s not cheetah or pythons or something like that, who’s to tell? (laughs) Something could come along that we never even thought of, who thought 20 years ago we’d be talking about alpacas."
For NHPR news, I’m RK.
